


On With The Show

by sunsetmog



Category: Miranda (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28132194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: In which Miranda catches us up on what we've missed in 2020.
Relationships: Miranda Hart/Gary Preston
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	On With The Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, innie! Hope you enjoy.

"Why, hello," Miranda said, sitting down on her sofa and smiling at her imaginary camera. "Hasn't it been a while, chums? Well, what have you been up to? Actually, ignore that, I don't care. It's time to update you on my life. Mum and Dad started the year by getting matching tattoos." 

She grimaced at the camera. "I _know_ ," she said. "I thought middle class old-aged pensioners in Surrey didn't get matching tattoos, but apparently they do now." She blinked. "They're also on their _bottoms_. A fact I found out when Mum insisted on showing me the pictures. On the projection screen."

Miranda, for a moment, lost herself in the memories of trying to sink into the sofa cushions as her mother showed the entire process, including the healing process, in all its... glory. Other people never had to see their parents' bottoms, and she would have quite liked to have been one of those people. This wasn't even the first time. She didn't deserve this. 

"Quite horrifying," she said, grimacing again. "Quite, quite horrifying. What else? Lockdown happened. We made our own fun." 

She rifled through memories of using party poppers to catapult frozen vegetables down the length of the living room, re-enacting the final dance from Strictly Ballroom, and, carrying on in that vein, participating in a whole series of Strictly Come Dancing to an audience of vegepals and a judging panel made up of her teapot, a mop bucket, a mop, and handheld blender with googly eyes stuck on and their hair done. 

"For a while, we entertained the idea of being one of those couples, you know the ones, the ones who go out on bicycle rides together in the countryside, and have picnics in the fields in soft focus sunshine." It had turned out Gary couldn't actually ride a bike, something that he'd failed to mention until he'd fallen into a hedge and Miranda had been so distracted she'd narrowly missed being knocked off her bike by a passing milk float. They'd attempted to have a picnic, but there had been wasps, then Gary's manly fear of wasps, then _someone_ had knocked the orange juice over and Miranda's shirt had, shock-horror, turned out to be mostly see-through when wet. After that they'd rather left the romantic exercising in pairs to other people. 

"The shop didn't count as an essential business, although I like to think that making people laugh is essential, but the very nice police officer didn't agree, so Stevie took it upon herself to turn our shop online. Do I look like the kind of person to be _online_? No. She made me do an internet business course. Me!" 

And that was another thing, because when the joining instructions said _video participation is optional_ Miranda had naturally assumed that video participation was not required, and had dressed appropriately. Or rather, inappropriately, given that she'd had to lead a discussion on online marketing whilst dressed as a giant peanut. Miranda made a face at the imaginary camera. "If you can't make your own fun whilst at home, when can you make it?"

For a moment, she considered the other ways they'd had to make their own fun this year, like in the middle of the heatwave with no garden, they'd had all the windows open and the fans on, and her and Gary had had their own paddling pool each on the kitchen floor. Hours spent in a swimming costume reclining in a blow up paddling pool that fitted approximately 6% of her in it, but given that the alternative was actually having their skin melt off with the heat, the paddling pools were valid life choices. They'd taken full advantage of the unsold stock downstairs and played all of the beach games they hadn't had an opportunity to sell, including velcro catch and boules. They'd also rigged up something with Miranda's table swing ball set to allow for a selection of shareable shacks on a tray. 

Miranda turned her attention back to the imaginary camera. "Which brings me to my next point, which is, _Zoom_. Zoom. Zooooom. Quite a nice word, Zoom. Not as nice as plunge, obviously, but what is? Plunge. _Plunge_. Anyway Zoom turns out to be a nicer word than it is an experience. Have you ever tried explaining how to use Zoom to your mother whilst she persists in calling the mouse the _doobury_? Dad still insists on calling it the clicker, which is only marginally less annoying." Miranda made a face. Trying to coach her parents in how to use their laptop had been a repeated exercise in futility, and she can't help but remember multiple times she'd been reduced to yelling at the camera, _Mum, you're on mute. You're on MUTE_. In the end, Gary had made her a sign and she'd just held it up at the camera every five seconds. 

"And Stevie's no better. Weekly Zoom quizzes! Not that we get competitive, of course--" she eyed the camera for a moment -- "but which monster invented the Zoom quiz? I admit, not every Zoom quiz has the joy of being chaired by Ms Heather Small herself, but she's been a frequent attendee." 

Every Thursday night, in fact, at 7pm. Time for Stevie's nice and easy, zoom-a-peasy, Thursday queezie. Technically it should have been quizzie, but it didn't quite rhyme so they'd made do. Neither Gary nor Miranda ever remembered the theme - more focused on the provision of appropriate snacks - but Stevie's Heather Small mask popped up and sung _What have you done today, to make you feel good?_ as part of the theme music, and they were all creatures of habit. Gary would help himself to a bit of cheese whilst Miranda ate a malteser, and Stevie ran through the previous weekly winners of Stevie's nice and easy, zoom-a-peasy, Thursday queezie. They were all Stevie, but considering she both planned, created, and ran their quizzes, that was hardly surprising. Sometimes Tilly and Dreamboat Charlie joined, sometimes Clive and Jim, sometimes Miranda's parents, although Penny always concentrated less on the quiz and more on the fact that Gary and Miranda were still together, and she had no particular need to try and auction off her daughter to anyone who'd have her. 

_I'm just saying, darling_ , Penny had said, on significantly more than one occasion, _Trapped in the flat together all year, close-up. Try and create a little distance. Keep the magic alive. Try to be a little more normal. Eat less beans. Toilet paper is being rationed, you know. Such fun!_

"Rude," Miranda said to the camera, reaching for the Malteser-blaster. Miranda and Gary had reconfigured a little pop gun earlier in the year to shoot maltesers instead of paper balls; it was an ongoing challenge to shoot one up into the air and catch it in your mouth. They had tried it with a peanut m&ms but the nut inside made it more of a projectile than a malteser so they'd reverted. They took it in turns which did, in general, mean their attention was somewhere other than Stevie's twelve-round quiz extravaganza.

"Anyway, it's not like Gary isn't strange too." She'd come in from the bathroom to find Gary sitting on the sofa, talking to no one. There was no one else there. Stevie had, thankfully, moved back home after showing up on their doorstep the morning after the household bubble rules had been introduced, complete with two suitcases, two tins of banana bread, and an enthusiastic smile. That month had been... somewhat strained, but between the three of them they had worked out some not inconsequential dance routines to Billy Joel so in the end it evened out. 

It turned out Gary was introducing his own television show, saying that he'd heard Miranda doing it and it had sounded like fun, so he was giving it a go. 

Miranda smiled at the camera. "I didn't launch myself at him yelling TAKE ME so I think we can all agree that's a win. Speaking of Gary, he's been guilty once more of making savoury muffins. I know. A savoury muffin. What's the point? Why? We're not monsters." 

He should have learnt by now; savoury muffins weren't to be housed in their flat. He said he labelled them, but as if she had time to go around looking at labels on cake tins. They were supposed to house cake, and by all agreed experts, cake was supposed to be _nice_ , and not savoury. After accidentally biting into a cheese and spring onion muffin, she'd taken her revenge and squashed a raspberry and white chocolate muffin into his mouth. "I take back everything I ever said about angry food sex being everybody just being mad and covered in food. We were doing it wrong. We should have started with muffins."

It had meant quite a lot of hoovering, though. She wasn't so on board with that. 

She was, however, on board with Gary. She probably always would be. Her stupid, loveable, brilliant best friend, boyfriend, husband, lover. He'd taken up knitting now, and no doubt she'd be getting a very long scarf of dubious, multiple widths when they opened their presents on Christmas Day. She was really rather looking forward to it, all things considered. 

She remembered them kissing to _Together in Electric Dreams_ in her kitchen, after he'd cooked her dinner and she'd entertained him with a mixture of karaoke and sticking googly eyes on his vegetables. 

Yes, things were really rather good. 

"Anyway," Miranda said, jumping up. "That's you all caught up, chums. On with the show."


End file.
